The Foundation’s Position
The Historical Record
Questions have been raised about the date, location, and nature of the 1959 uprising. We take those questions seriously. Here is what the record actually shows — and what the Evans family has to say about it.
Our approach
The Cooper Do-nuts Foundation was not created to defend a myth. It was created to document a history — and that means taking seriously both what the evidence supports and what it doesn’t.
In recent years, questions have been raised about the 1959 uprising: whether it happened on the date usually cited, whether it occurred at the Main Street location at all, and whether some of the most widely circulated accounts are accurate. These are legitimate historical questions. We welcome them.
But legitimate questions deserve answers built on evidence. This page presents what we know, what the Evans family’s own record shows, and why we believe the historical significance of Cooper Do-nuts — whatever the precise details of that night — is not in serious doubt.
01 / The questions
What is actually being debated?
The points most commonly raised as challenges to the Cooper Do-nuts story fall into a few categories:
The date
The uprising is conventionally dated to 1959. Some researchers have questioned whether the available contemporary records support this date, suggesting the event may have occurred earlier, later, or in a different year entirely.
The location
The event is associated with the Cooper Donuts storefront at or near 215 S Main Street. Questions have been raised about whether the address cited in various accounts matches the actual layout of the block and the locations of the businesses at the time.
The sourcing
The most widely cited account of the uprising comes from John Rechy’s 1963 novel City of Night — a work of literary fiction drawn from lived experience. Some researchers have argued that relying on a novel as primary historical evidence is methodologically insufficient.
These are serious points. We are not going to dismiss them. But we are also not going to concede the entire history because some details remain uncertain. Uncertainty is not the same as falseness.
02 / The distribution question
Cooper’s donuts were everywhere — including where they weren’t branded.
One of the key arguments sometimes raised against the Cooper Do-nuts location is that the specific building or address in question may not have carried the Cooper Donuts sign at the time of the alleged uprising. This is worth addressing directly.
Jack Evans built his business in two ways: through his own storefronts, and through a wholesale distribution network. Cooper’s donuts were sold to independent cafes, diners, and shops across Los Angeles — including establishments like Lou Fer’s, Scots, and Spencers. A shop could have Cooper’s donuts in the window without being a Cooper Donuts-branded location.
The Evans family’s position
“The fact that the exact building may not have been a branded Cooper Donuts storefront does not mean Cooper’s donuts weren’t there. Our donuts were in shops all across that part of downtown. The name on the door was not the whole story.”
Keith Evans
This is not a dodge. It is a material fact about how the Evans family’s business operated. Any account of the Cooper Do-nuts presence on Main Street that treats only the branded storefront as relevant is working with an incomplete picture.
03 / What is not in dispute
The things the record clearly supports.
Whatever the precise details of the 1959 uprising, certain things are well-documented and not seriously contested:
Cooper Do-nuts operated on South Main Street in Los Angeles from 1952 through the mid-1990s. The Evans family owned and operated it.
The Main Street corridor in this period was home to a significant LGBTQ+ community — gay men, transgender women, drag performers, and sex workers who gathered in the late-night establishments that remained open.
LAPD harassment of this community was systematic and documented. Arrests for “masquerading” (cross-dressing) were common throughout the late 1950s. The contemporary newspaper record supports this context thoroughly.
Cooper Do-nuts, by the family’s own account and by the account of people who were there, was a place where LGBTQ+ people felt welcome and safe. That was not accidental. It was a function of how Jack Evans chose to run his business.
Nancy Valverde, a lesbian Latina woman who frequented the shop, recalls hearing about a police confrontation almost immediately after it allegedly occurred. Her account has been consistent over decades and has been cited in mainstream media including the Los Angeles Times and Los Angeles Magazine.
In 2023, the City of Los Angeles designated the corner at 2nd and Main a historic landmark and renamed it Cooper Do-nuts/Nancy Valverde Square. The city’s Historic Cultural Monument process requires research and review. The designation is not casual.
Challenging the specific date or precise address of a single confrontation does not undo any of the above. The historical significance of Cooper Do-nuts rests on the entirety of what the shop was — not on one night.
04 / The larger point
A riot may be impossible to prove. The welcome was real.
Events in the late-night margins of 1950s Los Angeles were not well-documented. LAPD Chief William Parker, who ran the department from 1950 to 1966, actively restricted media access to police records — a policy that created gaps in the archival record that historians have struggled with for decades. The absence of a newspaper account is not proof that something didn’t happen.
What the record cannot hide is what Cooper Do-nuts was: a place, operating over more than four decades, that was open when other places were closed, that employed the unemployable, that welcomed the unwelcome, and that became — in the words of those who were there — somewhere you could be exactly who you were.
“The most important takeaway is not whether or not a riot happened, but that in light of all of that other darkness, there was a ray of shining light.”
From the USC documentary on Cooper Do-nuts
We think that’s right. And we think that’s worth preserving regardless of what any future archival research determines about the specifics of the night in question.
05 / Our work
This is an active investigation.
The Cooper Do-nuts Foundation is actively working to expand the historical record — not to defend a fixed narrative, but to get it right. That work includes:
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Reviewing the contemporary newspaper archive — including non-English-language Los Angeles press — for coverage of police activity on Main Street in the late 1950s.
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Working with the ONE Archives at USC — which holds materials related to Cooper Do-nuts — to identify documentary evidence not yet in the public record.
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Collecting oral histories from people who were part of the Main Street community in this period — including those who may not have been connected to LGBTQ+ organizing but who have memories of the shop and the neighborhood.
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Working with the Evans family to make available documents, photographs, and records from the family archive that have not previously been published.
Much of this history is still being uncovered. We will tell you what we find — including findings that complicate the existing narrative. That is what a historical record is for.
The record is not closed.
If you have information, documents, or memories relevant to the history of Cooper Do-nuts — or the events of Main Street in the late 1950s — we want to hear from you. Follow our work as it develops.
We’ll only write when we have something worth saying.